Jackson, Jabez Young, 1790-

Jabez Young Jackson was a son of General James Jackson. He was born in Savannah, but spent his adult life in Clarkesville, Georgia. He was a Representative in Congress, 1835-1839.

Jabez Young Jackson, the son of James Jackson [1757-1806] and uncle of James Jackson [1819-1887], a Representative from Georgia; born in Savannah, Ga., in July 1790; resided at Clarkesville; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-fourth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James M. Wayne; reelected as a Democrat to the Twenty-fifth Congress and served (October 5, 1835-March 3, 1839); died in Clarkesville, Habersham County, Ga.; death date unknown. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=J000015) Retrieved 7/9/2009.

Francis Preston Blair, newspaper editor and presidential adviser, was born in Abingdon, Virginia, the son of James Blair, a lawyer and, later, attorney general of Kentucky, and Elizabeth Smith; he was usually called Preston. Reared in Frankfort, Kentucky, Blair graduated with honors from Transylvania University in 1811. In 1812 he married Eliza Violet Gist (Eliza Violet Gist Blair), and for sixty-four years she was Blair's equal partner in every endeavor. They had four children who reached adulthood. Blair's paper, The Globe, was a highly readable journal that idealized democracy and made Jackson its symbol. Democratic newspapers everywhere reprinted Blair's editorials, which helped spread the concept of America as a beacon of freedom for the world. Blair attacked the U.S. Bank as a threat to democracy because of its uncontrolled power over the national economy and its financial ties to various members of Congress and the Whig party, and he glorified Jackson's defense of the Union against South Carolina's effort to nullify the tariff laws. He was an adviser in Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet, helped organize the Democratic party into a national institution, and wielded great power in the dispensation of government jobs. After the Civil War, the Blairs, who favored an easy Reconstruction process that would not threaten states' rights or white supremacy, became influential confidants of President Andrew Johnson and broke with the Republican party. At this time their high hopes for political power rested primarily on Frank, who in 1868 was the Democratic vice presidential candidate and in 1871 was elected to the Senate. In 1875, however, Frank died, and his broken-hearted father followed a year later at Silver Spring. As a partisan editor, Blair exaggerated the egalitarianism of the Democrats, but by glorifying democracy as the national ideal and by identifying the immensely popular Jackson with a coherent democratic philosophy, he contributed to the national spirit that saved the Union in 1861. On the Texas issue he sacrificed personal advantage for principle, and he worked tirelessly and effectively to prevent slavery's expansion and to preserve the American Union. The Pennsylvania Avenue home that he purchased in 1836 and gave to his son Montgomery fifteen years later still serves as a guesthouse for visiting foreign dignitaries. American National Biography Online. (http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00111.html?a=1&n=francis%20preston%20blair&ia=-at&ib=-bib&d=10&ss=0&q=2) Retrieved 7/9/2009.

John Cook Rives, journalist and printer, was born in Franklin County, Virginia, the son of George Rives. His mother's name is not known. His father had died by 1806, when Rives moved to Kentucky to live with his uncle Samuel Casey. Rives later moved to Illinois, where he worked in the Edwardsville branch of the Bank of the United States and was admitted to the bar in Shawneetown, after studying law there. Rives went to Washington in 1824 to testify before a congressional committee concerning the Bank of the United States. He first worked as a clerk in the office of the United States Telegraph, whose editor, Duff Green, recommended him to other influential Democrats. Without making an application, Rives was made a clerk in the Treasury Department, under its fourth auditor, Amos Kendall, who was a close adviser to President Andrew Jackson. After holding that job for about three years, Rives resigned in April 1832 to work as a clerk and office manager for Francis Preston Blair, whom Kendall had brought to the capital to establish and edit the Washington Globe as an administration newspaper. Rives and Blair became full partners in the paper in 1834. Neither man was handsome, and they were soon calling themselves "the ugliest looking pair in the country." American National Biography Online. (http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-01389.html?a=1&n=rives,%20john%20&ia=-at&ib=-bib&d=10&ss=0&q=1) Retrieved 7/9/2009.